In the end I found Pastor Reinke a thoroughly unsympathetic character...

What bothered me is the fact that not only was there a little too much religion intonation in this film, but the fact that Pastor Reinke sort of screwed his family over, because he was so singlehandedly devoted to the cause. Helping people who're desperate, jobless, homeless, and feel that they have little or no chances in this economy is one thing, but there has to be a happy medium, which Pastor Reinke couldn't/didn't seem capable of, if one gets the drift.

In my experience, most pastors have "mixed motives" (not just one motive, and not all positive motives either). All along it's clear Pastor Reinke loves the attention and adulation, so much so a frequent question is whether this movie is about down-and-out workers or about a church pastor in crisis. In several Q&As, the filmmaker relates that early on Pastor Reinke told him straight out that "my motives are seldom pure", which made the filmmaker like him more because of his honesty.

The question should not be whether any less-than-admirable motives exist at all, but rather whether on balance it's "worth it". One might very well conclude (as I have:-) that most of the time it's not "worth it". But that conclusion is because of the totality, not simply because there are at least a few negative motives in the mix.

In one of the Q&As, the filmmaker relates the original plan was to have that conversation in a different place and without the camera present. They all got a cup of coffee, and the story came tumbling out in an unplanned way. When explicitly asked whether Pastor Reinke jumped the gun on purpose in order to have the camera present, the filmmaker answered that he'd never been able to figure out one way or the other, and even Pastor Reinke himself on the inside probably was never clear on just why he behaved the way he did, that the motives seemed "mixed" but beyond that it was quite murky.

In another Q&A, the filmmaker relates that Pastor Reinke told his future wife he was attracted to men on their second date. So she had always known part of the story. The parts that were new to her were that there had been a recent infidelity and that he would probably lose his job.

Earlier in the film (the visual is the whole family sitting in the football bleachers), Pastor Reinke himself comments at some length that he's been shortchanging his marriage and his family and it's a serious problem. And all along he'd been pushing limits with his family, for example inviting a registered sex offender to live in their house. So the confrontation at the end with its questionable motives wasn't something new.

The common thread to both the overnighter men and Pastor Reinke is that they're "broken". Sympathy for fellow sufferers is probably part of the reason Pastor Reinke made such strenuous efforts to help them. And for a brief time he ends up in the same boat as the men he was helping: unemployed and with no place to live.

I too had some similar doubts about motives as I watch this incredible movie. I then got to observe a Q&A afterwards with the filmmaker and Pastor Reinke. I was very moved by the whole exchange between filmmaker and main character, and Reinke came across as an authentic - and self-admittedly flawed - man who struggled to do the right thing. I can say I've never seen anyone try harder than him.

Hello Irm8 - can you edit your post to give a spoiler warning?

What hump? 

Yes, please, spoiler alert definitely needed, possibly in header

@irm8...You expressed my reaction to the preacher's personna. Narcissistic, self-promoting to the detriment of his family, church, and his career.

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I really felt the pastor's revelation was an attempt to keep the focus on himself, rather than the emphasis of the film on the homeless in Williston.